Food Network comes to the rescue for ailing Phamous Phil's in Lower Providence

By
Gary Puleo, The Times Herald

Monday, November 18, 2013

LOWER PROVIDENCE — Phil and Robin Schmidt are hoping a little Food Network salvation that rolls out on Thursday at 10 p.m. will return their much-lauded barbecue joint to the glory days of 2010.

When Phamous Phil’s BBQ made its debut in Evansburg that year, the place was soon smoking from all the business rendered by serious barbecue buffs who gobbled up the concept of a menu offering all the diverse flavors of the specialty, from Memphis to the Carolinas.

Three years later, in spite of countless accolades and awards and an expanded menu that included burgers, cheesesteaks and pasta, the little eatery on Germantown Pike that has soaked up all the dreams and savings of renowned pitmaster Phil Schmidt and his wife Robin had fallen on hard times.

Why weren’t the restaurant’s nearly 2,000 Facebook followers chowing down on Phil’s “phamously” mouth-watering ribs and pulled pork sandwiches like they used to?

Desperate for answers, Phil and Robin dashed off an e-mail to the experts at the Food Network.

“We know it’s not the food, so it has to be our location,” said Phil, a local guy who honed his barbecuing skills down south. “We asked them, ‘what are we doing wrong? Can anybody help us?’”

The next day, Robin got a phone call from an executive in New York, saying the network bigwigs thought Phamous Phil’s would be a good fit for a new reality show in development. Once the couple passed an exhaustive screening process, the Food Network gurus swooped down on their struggling restaurant with a recipe for a grand makeover.

However, there was a catch to the “Restaurant Impossible”-inspired intervention.

“They asked what type of food would we like to be making if we didn’t do barbecue?” Robin recalled.

And so the somewhat contrived but always intriguing and intense adventure called “Restaurant Divided” was off and running.

Food Network fanatics will need to tune in to Thursday’s premiere of the episode to find out how the restaurant was dramatically dichotomized in a way that pitted Robin against her pitmaster husband.

Well-known chef and “Restaurant Divided” host Rocco DiSpirito dismissed the Schmidts’ assertion that their remote location, plus the emergence of Providence Town Center and its countless dining options on the other side of the bridge, were to blame for the lack of business as “making excuses.”

Although Robin is grateful for the Food Network’s expertise that revamped the operation and the menu and gave the interior a sparkling Country Living-style renovation, she said she doesn’t necessarily agree with that conclusion.

Amazingly, in spite of the fact that the building has always been home to a restaurant of some sort for decades, many people tell the couple they had no idea that Phamous Phil’s BBQ was even there.

“They just drive right by,” Phil said, shaking his head.

Make no bones about it, Phamous Phil’s is still drawing a core of loyal diners to its slow-smoked St. Louis ribs and baby back ribs — just not often enough.

“When you grow up in the south you’re eating barbecue two or three days a week because that’s all you know,” Robin said. “Up north, people live on pizza and cheesesteaks, and I think they think of barbecue as a specialty, a treat.”

Phil nodded. “We have people coming from Maryland and New Jersey, but they’ll only come once a month,” he said. “We need people in the door every day.”

Though the authentic communal dining benches — plucked by Food Network designers from a beer garden in Germany — add a rustic touch, they can’t turn a Yankee into a Rebel.